Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
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Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#2Up to 70% usually means 2%
Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#3Just don't buy those foods. Buy fresh vegetables, tofu, and meat from the edges of the grocery store. Simple. Done.
Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#4Up to 70% usually means 2%
In this case, it seems to be lower than the figure quoted in the report abstract[1] (emphasis mine).
> Among 230,156 food and beverage products, the mean [Health Star Rating] was 2.7 (standard deviation (SD) 1.4) from a possible maximum rating of 5.0, and 71% of products were classified as ultra-processed.
Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#5Up to 70% usually means 2%
Here it actually means 70%, but the paper is in a paper from mdpi which have been under criticism for predatory (i.e. fraudulent, junk-science enabling) practices.
From TFA:
"We report results of a cross-sectional assessment of the 2018 US packaged food and beverage supply by nutritional composition and indicators of healthfulness and level of processing. Data were obtained through Label Insight’s Open Data database, which represents >80% of all food and beverage products sold in the US over the past three years. Healthfulness and the level of processing, measured by the Health Star Rating (HSR) system and the NOVA classification framework, respectively, were compared across product categories and leading manufacturers. Among 230,156 food and beverage products, the mean HSR was 2.7 (standard deviation (SD) 1.4) from a possible maximum rating of 5.0, and 71% of products were classified as ultra-processed. "
Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#6This article equates ultraprocessed foods and hyperpalatable foods (foods designed to make people want to eat them more). While many hyperpalatable foods are classified as ultraprocessed, simply being hyperpalatable does not mean it's ultraprocessed.
Worth noting that the Nova food classificationvsysten (which this article references) completely disregards the actual nutritional content of foods.
For a good primer on a lot of the misconceptions around UPFs, check out [0].
[0] https://www.harvardmagazine.com/research/harvard-ultraproces...
Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#7Up to 70% usually means 2%
In this case, it seems to be lower than the figure quoted in the report abstract[1] (emphasis mine). > Among 230,156 food and beverage products, the mean [Health Star Rating] was 2.7 (standard deviation (SD) 1.4) from a possible maximum rating of 5.0, and 71% of products were classified as ultra-processed . [1]: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/8/1704
The dataset contains ~80% of food sold and inclusion in it is very probably skewed towards large volume. So the lower bound is something like 56% (if the 20% rest are not ultraprocessed)
Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#8Up to 70% usually means 2%
2% definitely sounds about right for the US...bahaha
Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#9This article equates ultraprocessed foods and hyperpalatable foods (foods designed to make people want to eat them more). While many hyperpalatable foods are classified as ultraprocessed, simply being hyperpalatable does not mean it's ultraprocessed. Worth noting that the Nova food classificationvsysten (which this article references) completely disregards the actual nutritional content of foods. For a good primer on…
Food is ultraprocessed to make it cheaper, more palatable, or both. So while the definitions are orthogonal the goals align.
Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)
#10Headline is massively misleading.
The actual study cited by the article, measures this as 71% of food products offered for sale in the US, by count of unique items, are ultraprocessed.
Not that 71% of food products sold by weight or volume or dollar amount are ultraprocessed.
This is just observing that if you list all food products for sale in the US, "pear" appears on that list once but "Store Brand salty corn chips" appears 25 times.